Soviet smokes catch light again

If the devil has all the best tunes, then the Soviets had all the best looking cigarette packets. "Despite its myriad deficiencies, the Soviet Union produced strikingly crisp, ideologically driven graphic design that masked the inferiority of its products behind the distinguished packaging," observed John Weich in
34 (October/November).

Many brands favoured the names and images identified with the motherland's great achievements under communism, including space and air travel. Portraits of Lenin or Stalin, usually against a red backdrop emblazoned with excerpts from the Pravda newspaper, were also popular.

The iconographic appeal of such cigarette packaging has not been missed by the international tobacco conglomerates. They have bought up the brands or created "faux" versions. In 1996 BAT relaunched Java, one of the Soviet Union's most popular brands. "Upgrading a Soviet heritage brand with an American tobacco blend turned out to be an enormous success and a BAT cash cow," noted Weich.

In Bon (Autumn), Ken Miller explained the aesthetics of the underground culture accompanying some of New York's "most arty, difficult, noisy bands imaginable" such as No Neck Blues Band. Besides the music, which is a cacophony of droning feedback and freeform jazz drums, the culture has its own fashion - a parade of "damaged and 're-purposed' clothing" from a number of small Brooklyn labels - and its own art, including the "creepy dream-weaving" of Canada's Marcel Dzama and the "psychedelic installations" of Brazil's Assume Vivid Astro Focus.

But this underground scene is more than just ripped T-shirts or creating collages. "What it takes is a sense of kinship and community," said Miller. "Because this is difficult music - art rock influenced by Fluxus, free jazz and hallucinogens - that announces ... you can either get with it or take a hike ... This is precisely the appeal."

Having a bad hair day? ID (November) had the solution: "Hairts", hats that look like hairstyles. Inspired by the cloche caps of 60s designer Rudi Gernreich, Hairts are the result of a collaboration between the hairdresser Neil Moodie and the milliner-cum-accessory-designer Flora McLean. "She made me realise the scope for creating hats in the shape of hairstyles that didn't involve hair at all so they could be worn like a hat rather than a wig," said Moodie. And it was the premise of wigs that he wanted to avoid. "I was a bit like, wigs don't look real, so with this we can make it look as unreal as possible. It's become hyper-unreal," Moodie told ID. Think Channel 4's cult TV character Max Headroom and you're there.

The spandex-clad costume drama that is wrestling has reached new heights in production values, reported Dazed & Confused (November). Kaiju, which means mysterious beast in Japanese, is "pro-wrestling meets Japanese horror films", Justin told the magazine after attending a Kaiju Big Battel at a nightclub in Hollywood.

Kaiju's central character is Dr Cube, an evil box-headed surgeon who has designs on destroying the world - which, in the case of Kaiju, consists of cardboard cities within the ring. The task of stopping him falls to an assortment of other monster characters. From a distance their costumes "look like something your mother might have helped you construct to earn you first prize in a fancy-dress contest", said the magazine.

Kaiju wrestling began life as a 1994 short film by the Boston art teacher and Japanophile Rand Borden, who was inspired by Ishiro Honda's Godzilla and the Kaiju Eiga films of the 60s. "At first there were only four characters, but with help from his brother David, friends and an inspired website, Kaiju has evolved into the berserk, counter-cultural, Japanese-inspired phenomenon it is today, with ... 35 characters on regular rotation."